Teenagers needed marks of only 47 per cent to score a top A grade in a GCSE paper this year, exam chiefs have admitted.

And pupils taking one maths paper worth 25 per cent of the total exam grade were required to get a mark of just 16 per cent for a C grade.

Marks of only 45 per cent or less were needed to get a grade C on more than 100 GCSE papers set by the AQA exam board, according to the Times Educational Supplement.

And a mark of 47 per cent on an AQA business studies paper would get a student the top possible grade of A*.

But exam chiefs defended the standard of the papers.

Exam board Edexcel confirmed that students needed 16 per cent on one higher tier maths paper, which was worth a quarter of the overall marks, to get a grade C on that paper.

But spokeswoman for the board insisted that standards were just as tough as in previous years.

"Students have to perform consistently across all stages to gain the grade,'' she said.

"Edexcel's chief examiners and accountable officer are confident that the grade boundaries set this year are commensurate with boundaries from past years.




"To gain the maths GCSE students have to sit seven tests and submit one piece of coursework.

"The marks referred to by the Times Educational Supplement relate to the higher tier paper and just one of seven stages. It does not mean that you can gain a GCSE grade C on one test's marks.''

A spokeswoman for AQA said fewer marks were required to pass the business studies paper this year because the questions were harder than in the past.

"The boundary was lower this year than it was on the paper last year,'' she said.

"It became apparent that candidates had consistently found elements of this year's paper more difficult than last year's paper. We have to take that into account and adjust that in order to maintain the standard.''


- I particularly like this last part here.....it essentially says that if students find the paper hard, then we simply lower the pass mark to ensure that they perform. Shouldn't the pass mark signify a level of understanding of the subject?? To obtain an A*, shouldn't one have exceptional knowledge of the subject, a great understanding of the concepts, an ability to apply the knowledge to solve problems, explain situations and outcomes?

If you just lower the grade boundary year in and year out, this essentially means students are given a mark for knowing less and less information, not being able to apply the information - and above all, nullify the qualification entirely?

If I had children, I would be seriously worried about their future in the UK education!

Edited by - Mike G on 9/9/2005 4:07:29 AM

I am seriously worried which is why my children arent in the state education system, we pay for their education at the top private school in our area. thats not because of snobbery or anything like that, its simply that the state schools round here are rubbish, and i should know, i used to be a teacher.

education in this country has been a disaster since the 60s. ill-considered social experiments by social libertarians followed on by reactionary backlashes combined with the accumulating breakdown of the social fabric and increasing budgetary demands for tired and dilapidated school buildings, and the descent of education policy to being political bagatelle and the subject of such ludicrous measurement of standards as league tables.

my daughter got 8 A*s and 2 As. I know she worked really hard and dedicated herself to revision (believe me I do know! I had to do a lot of it with her) and the thought that scrotes from Slag Street Comprehensive can get similar grades for turning up because of deliberately lax marking to improve the overall appearance that Blur's education poicy is working, well it sticks in my craw. I'm not saying there aren't clever kids at satte schools, of course there are, i used to teach them, but grades are lax now and people are marked up not down. The old *O* levels were a much better standard, everyone nknew O-level C or higher was a decent pass, anything less and you were a duffer, and CSEs were for the duffers who couldnt hack O levels. GCSE was meant to amalgamate the best of both and replace them but from what i can see a cabbage could pass them.

everyone elses education policies (Europe, Scandinavia, Far East) seem pretty good and aimed at getting kids into appropriate jobs and careers, well except maybe Americas cos we have many of the same problems.

Edited by - Tawakalna (Reloaded) on 9/9/2005 9:03:34 AM

I agree, private schools aren't limited to the curriculum - so they can teach whatever they feel is in the best interest of the children. I have heard some are turning to other areas for exams - like the International Baccalaureate, which people have been touting for years as an ideal alternative to our current education system What is the Baccalaureate

The main issue for me is that private schools may generally teach to a higher standard, but the students are still being measured with the same stick - the GCSE - and also the A-Level. Increasingly, head teachers are starting to question the validity of the GCSE's in its apparent decreasing quality Headmaster of St Pauls questions GCSE's. I haven't heard of the international GCSE that he mentions though.....

The highest achieving private school had a 94% pass rate at A/A* level in GCSE's, but when those A*'s may now mean that students only need to obtain 45%+ score - it defeats the object. Whilst the private education system will reassure that your childrens education is generally to a better standard than the state system - their academic acheivements will still be clouded with the same controversy.

If you cannot trust the qualifications to be rigorous enough - then the sheer volume of A's and A*'s will have little bearing on the childs actual ability as well!


More worringly, it also goes backwards - can you really find confidence in the figures for Key Stage 3, when its apparent now that GCSE's are "dumbing down" as the media call it? Key Stage 3 Science pass rate highest ever.
Or perhaps they have done as I know, just made it easier to pass the damned exams instead.

Looking forward, the same can be said for the A-Levels as well, with calls to update A-Level exams in face of criticism - mind you, the "quota" system mentioned is a diabolical pathetic pile of claptrap. How can you say "10% of A-level students in each subject category will receive an A grade". What happens if ALL students don't get above 10% because they didn't do anything? Is it a measure of how good your peer group is, or how well you understand and apply your chosen subject?
Criticism that A-levels aren't what they were

Although like I said, you can be re-assured the private sector leads to better educated children - when they are taking and acheiving the same results as state due to lowering standards (allegedly) - its a high price for simple peace of mind.

Edited by - Mike G on 9/9/2005 5:48:30 AM

Public education started going downhill when they got rid of Corporal Punishment, and the curve. We've got all sorts of people complaining about how underfunded the public education system is, even though we're spending more money per student (even adjusting for inflation) than we ever have, and the results are worse than ever. We've got people complaining that they need money for computers and stuff like that, even though schools did just fine a hundred years ago when computers didn't exist. Isaac Newton, Euclid, and Gauss didn't have computers and they invented parts of mathematics. I don't see why you need one now to learn from them. That's my rant on education. I'm a little extra sensitive on this because I read an article in a magazine about how schools are making the kids do all those fund raisers. My two daughters aren't school age yet, but I'm dreading the junk that school is going to push on them.

Let's get those missiles ready to destroy the universe!!

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We've got people complaining that they need money for computers and stuff like that, even though schools did just fine a hundred years ago when computers didn't exist. Isaac Newton, Euclid, and Gauss didn't have computers and they invented parts of mathematics. I don't see why you need one now to learn from them.

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Computers are an integral part of our lives now, whether we like it or not, and I would say it does make sense to make use of them in education. Not only because kids need to learn about them, but because of the massive aid they provide. Think of how much information is available on the internet, and how hard it would be to find that same information 100, or even 20 years ago.

There's no doubt that there is a problem with the exams, but they aren't quite that bad. And I do not believe they are getting much easier, expecially the GCSE exams. Look at the graph below (which I whipped up from the AQA exam results):

The whole point of these exams is to distinguish between the different levels of ability. Ideally, the graph should resemble a normal distribution curve, with the peak in the middle of possible grades (say, a grade C) and tailing off on either side. The graph of results fits this shape reasonably well, so it should only be a small percentage (Actually 5.4%) of students who get the top A* grade. At a guess, I would say you live in a reasonably well-off part of the country, where kids are able to get a decent education and a large number of them threfore get good grades. As a national average, only 5.4% got the top grade.

Perhaps the improving grades are due to - *gasp* - a higher standard of education...

why aren't they as hard as my O-levels then? Ive actually compared old O-level papers with GCSE equivalents and I dont think the modern ones are as hard or intense. maths, science, languages, the NC just doesnt go into the depth that a proper grammar school education did.

seeing as many kids are leaving school to all intents and purposes illiterate (oh yes, I 've had to interview the little fokkers for jobs and theyre virtually unemployable) then how can educational standards be improving?

modern experiments, bah rubbish. let's put things back the way they were when things actually worked.

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.....it essentially says that if students find the paper hard, then we simply lower the pass mark to ensure that they perform. Shouldn't the pass mark signify a level of understanding of the subject?? To obtain an A*, shouldn't one have exceptional knowledge of the subject, a great understanding of the concepts, an ability to apply the knowledge to solve problems, explain situations and outcomes?

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Yea well...it's like in my one Uni subject the passmark is 75%, simply because having 50% knowledge of it is simply not enough, youi'd think the same idea would be used in school work...I mean if you get like 40% it says you know only 40% of the work...in some subjects I guess it doesnt matter but in others...



Though it still sounds a bitter better than what we have here in SA

For a couple of years, the Grade 12 exams (Gr12 is the final year of high school, after that you can go to University or college or whatever pleases you) had a very very low standard, to mention an example: When I was in Gr 9, i did the gr12 Afrikaans grammar paper...it was a joke, our exam paper a the end of the year was more difficult.
Sure the standard has picked up, our grammar paper last year wasn't as easy as the one 4 ears before, but it was still a lot easier than it used to be. Apparently the English second language Literature paper was a big joke last year.
But thats not the point.
The kids who are in gr12 now, started out on what was know as "Curriculum(sp???) 2005"
This is a whole new system that has been tried before and failed in Australia and somewhere in Europe I think.

Now with this system you finish school after Gr 9...then you shoul finish school in a college somewhere.
Anyhow currently schools still go to Gr12, and the trasnsit from gr9 to gr10 is terrible.
The kids simply cannot do the work, the work they do up to gr9 is simply useless.
Along with this they have the ridiculous idea that one kid shouldn't be able to do better than another, all should be equal. So now instead of get A's, B's and so on you get rated on a scale of 1-5 or something like that.

Even with out marks...I was very angry actually. When I got my computer science marks end of last year, I was very surprised, having scored A's in the subject for the biggest part of the year and coming first in the class, I was shocked to see that i had a D. Later this year I found out what happened. Then only guy in the class, ended up having his exam marks so much lower than his year mark that they ended up lowering the average of everyone in the class. So basically if one guy does bad, everyone gets punished.
Wonderful ey'


Now they're even talking about lowering the standars of the universities, because...well the work they do in schools are simply not up to standard...if you finish school now you simply do not have the knowledge to be able to succeed in Uni. OK, that was a bit exagerated, but you get the idea...


Edited by - sw on 9/9/2005 10:57:41 AM

Seeing as I just got eight A*s and one A I do feel a bit cheesed off that you lot are deriding everyone's results. Just because the AQA board can't tell a fraction from a root as you seem to be implying doesn't mean every examination board has the same problem. I took the OCR maths paper and found it to be quite challenging, as did everyone else in my year. I felt pleased with myself for getting an A* as a result as did everyone else who did. To have these results besmirched and treated as if they were handed out like water is somewhat irritating to say the least.

Take the 16% thing for example. Did anyone here take that paper? Did anyone here read that paper? No, so how do you know how hard it was? Maybe it was hard, just like the OCR one was.

So far all you have done is complain bitterly the state of our education system as you see it. What do you hope to gain from your little rants? Will you change anything important? No. Will you improve the education system? No. (This goes for all the meedja (sic) that screams this sort of thing from the rooftops every year). Ok, free speech and all that, and it is just your opinions (how could I forget something so obvious) but how about laying off and keeping those opinions to yourselves. There are kids who tried their level best for these exams, gave it their best shot, and came back with a B or C; not the best score, but at least something they can feel good about. Rather than tell them it's all worthless and they only got what they did because the government wants votes, that GCSEs are "invalid", why not give them something to be proud of for a year?

Hey, we're not all complaining about the exams. And I took mine over a decade ago

Given that by far the most common grade at GCSE was a C, achieving A*'s is certainly something to be proud of. Hell, that puts you in the top 5% of all the country's entrants. Personally I think the system works well, and I'm also a little fed up with the incessant slamming the media is giving the system. A lot of these kids do work very hard at school, and when they get into the exam they find it easy as a result. It's the kids who turn up at school one day a week and flunk their exams that the media highlights, and then talks about falling standards as if this happens nationwide.

Rob, one flaw with the graph.

Assume:
A* > 90
A > 80
B > 70
C > 60
D > 50
E > 40
and whatever else comes below this. Plots out real nice.


Now assume they change the score thresholds for those grades.....where the thresholds indicate the level of knowledge and application:

A*> 50
A > 45
B > 40
C > 30
D > 25
E > 20

You may retain that lovely normal distribution curve - simply because you hold the grade brackets lower.

As it is though, some GCSE's are easier - I was teaching them for a year - and the top set science papers required less application of knowledge and understanding than they used to. A-levels - the syllabus has changed (mind you, so has the whole curriculum since I was a student, infact - it changed many times in the late 90's/early 00's!), so they don't cover the same material we used to. A-level chemistry certainly retained some tricky areas - so I am not convinced that A-level science is easier at all..... but that is not what Universities are saying, when they now need to give 1 yr maths courses to students, or cover foundation maths modules because people cannot do simple maths.

that's been a long standing trend. a lot of BA and BSc courses now have to fill first-years in on stuff they should have covered in their A-levels. that really began to be noticeable in the mid-80s, especially at the then polytechnics and smaller universities.

@Mike

Ah, but the point I was trying to make is that the exams are still a good method of "sorting the wheat from the chaff", if you know what I mean. As it stands, only 5% or so of students are achieving the top grades and a similar number are failing completely. In my mind that makes them effective, simply because of their ability to distinguish between the different levels of ability.

You're right about where the grade boundaries may actually lie though, I have no idea. I won't pretend to know more than a teacher on this subject because I certainly don't.

On a somewhat related note, I read in the news today that an NVQ in floristry is now worth over twice as much as a grade A at A-Level Maths (NVQ being a vocational course, usually considered a fall-back if you don't qualify for A-Levels). Other similar 'subjects' include "cake decoration, pattern cutting and wired sugar flowers", according to the BBC. This means that someone with NVQ's in flower arranging and cake decoration is, apparently, worth more in the education system than someone with A grades in A-Level Maths, Physics, Chemistry and Computing. To me this sounds...insane.

Taw, you're damn right about the first year of science courses. I'm studying mechanical engineering, so you'd expect everyone involved to at least have a good grounding in maths. Instead, we started learning basic calculus for the first few lectures. Then imaginary numbers, matrices and partial differentiation, frankly it just took the piss. In fact even worse was the very first engineering mathematics lecture where they went over the equation of a straight line and the difference between cartesian and polar co-ordinate systems!
At the same time they assumed everybody had studied electronics so when it came to our electrical systems module their were large numbers of us turning up to extra remedial lectures for those who had no grounding in the subject. Incidentally there were few foreign students there, it seems that everywhere else in the world they teach a lot of electronics during physics lessons.

I read that yesterday as well, which baffled me. I also read that they want to get rid of the GNVQ's (which people always said stood for "Generally not very quick" - but were always supposed to be a more vocational method, as it has been proven that people learn a variety of ways - Visual, Auditory and Tactile-Kinisthetic ) as well!
I also noticed that some schools wish to keep the GNVQ's, but cynically its determined that this is because when they include the GNVQ scores into their results, it actually shows an improvement upon their league tables. Whether children are being entered for what they actually want, or entered by the school for certain exams to improve the schools grading system, is what they were also asking by implication of the article.

Anyhew - back to the graphical representation.

Yes, you're right - it does sort the wheat from the chaff effectively, but grade boundaries have always been shifted to preserve a distribution. The discussion is essentially how far should that shifting go to preserve the distribution before something is done to redress the situation and tackle it instead. Whilst it sorts the "wheat from the chaff" on a year in/out basis effectively, is it actually best for the future of the nation if it is allowed to continue unchecked forever?
I know, that statement is based entirely upon the principle that it is indeed deteriorating - something that TET finds offensive to his achievements.

Whilst discussing (not ranting) about the topic may appear to achieve nothing TET, it does in fact highlight important things. Changes can be made - because this is a dict.....democracy where we vote for governments upon the policies that they put forward in the best interest of serving a nations need. Discussing the state of the education system which directly affects the whole nation, and ascertaining whether the current policies best serves the nations interests is very pertinent towards this country.

As voters, it would be wrong for us to take no interest in the future of the countries children - allowing it to settle into a state of being unsatisfactory in its remit (if that is indeed what is happening), effectively it is our responsiblity.
People are simply questioning the papers highlighted simply because they want to ensure that education is at a high standard, and not being glossed on to look good.

I know its disheartening to read a load of people "pissing" onto your peer groups achievements, but if no-one questioned anything - how would we know we are not being duped?

Of course, one method is to say that yes, those higher tier papers are much more difficult than the intermediate papers, so they can have a mere 47% pass mark as the grade boundary upon them for A*'s. I would counter that at that point the differential is very slim between the grade boundaries, it just seems like a complete waste of paper to have another 53% available that achieves nothing at all. Maybe that is what is being discussed - why is this happening? Where between a mark of 16% and 47% will take you from below a C grade, to an A* grade. Thats a C, B, A and then A* - all in the space of 30%! Not much differential in a paper that is especially tiered to serve those grades...

Because we cannot change it personally does not mean we shouldn't discuss it or care - otherwise we may as well live in a real 1984 state instead of a democracy.

By lord, this is a big post - I want my hour back!
*edit* - Damned grammatical errors!

Edited by - Mike G on 9/10/2005 7:21:43 AM